Top Ten - 2011

Obviously i didn't see everything out

1. Drive
2. Submarine
3. Animal Kingdom
4. The Guard
5. Snowtown
6. 50/50
7. Senna
8. The Fighter
9. The King's Speech
10. Kill List

List would proceed to -

11. Warrior. 
12. In A Better World (UK release 2011)
13. Rise of the Planet Of the Apes.
14. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
15. Black Swan
16. Take Shelter
17. The Ides of March
18. Midnight In Paris
19. Source Code
20. The Rum Diary

Other great ones: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Cedar Rapids. Super 8.  Another Earth. Sherlock Holmes 2. Meek's Cutoff. The Inbetweener's Movie. The Tree of Life.  Attack the Block. Bridesmaids.

Worst: Cowboys and Aliens.


2012 so far:

1. Shame
2. The Artist

Anticipating: Red Hook Summer, Coriolanus, The Woman in Black, The Dark Knight Rises, Prometheus, The Hobbit Part 1, Carnage.


Get yours up too!

The Artist (2011)

There was a time when films could be great without the need for speech, it was a time when cinema was young and developing, and the film’s stars were projected on to the screen in only two colours: black and white. It is this era which Michel Hazanavicius’s “The Artist” takes us back to. Not that this film intends to glorify the silent era of film, or parody such greats of the period such as Chaplin’s “The Gold Rush” or  F.W Murnau’s “Sunrise.” No, The Artist is a silent film about the death of silent film, a comedy-drama with an injection of tragedy.  

Let’s be frank though, the modern world is out of touch with the films of the silent era, and why wouldn’t we be? With so much to be offered by the power of sound. Whether it be the choppers of the US army laying waste to a Vietnamese village whilst The Ride of the Valkyries blares in Apocalypse Now,  the whine of Charles Bronson’s harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West or even the lingering echo of a gunshot climaxing The French Connection.

Stripped of speech the audience is left exposed to a very pure film, amplified by absorbing performances and stunning black and white imagery (at a snug 1.33:1 aspect ratio) with a relatable story which is guaranteed to engage modern audiences.

It begins in 1927. George Valentin, played by French actor Jean Dujardin, is the hottest (silent) film star in Hollywood (land). He lives with his needy and spoiled wife Doris and his co-star/pet dog in an enormous Beverly Hills mansion, driven by his devoted chauffeur Clifton (James Cromwell) across town. 

By chance the young Peppy Miller (Hazanavicius’s wife, Bérénice Bejo) crosses paths with Valentin during a media frenzy, and her chance encounter with valentine acts as a catalyst for her nonexistent film career. She lands a part as an extra on Valentin’s next feature film, “A German Affair,” and the two opposites – the dashing celebrity and the wannabe starlet – draw up a chemistry which is believable and heart-warming

It is when Valentin stubbornly refuses to venture into the “talkies” that the film takes a U-turn. Simultaneously as Miller’s career blossoms with the aid of talking pictures, Valentin’s falls apart. The Studio exec Al Zimmer (played fittingly by the great John Goodman) lets Valentin off the hook and so he ventures into a self-funded project called “Tears of Love” – a silent adventure, written, produced and directed by the star.

Before long Valentin’s wife has left, and with the stock market crash, his money disappears, soon he loses his home and when “Tears of Love” flops, Valentin is crushed. The talkies prevail and Dujardin has lost his place in the changing world. His era – the 20s – has come to an end, and the 30s has begun. In this new era, he is out of place and struggles like so many others to push on.

Jean dujardin is flawless in his portrayal of Valentin, his greatest skill here is his ability to make us smile and sympathise for him; he has an incredible ability to transform the mood of a single scene with  body language, be it a facial expression or a hand movement. Bejo too shines as Peppy Miller with a wonderful and heartfelt performance. The story of Bejo’s Miller is one of youth and vanity and the pleasures of fame; which clashes with Valentin’s tale of a vanished heyday, the pain of forgotten fame and blending back into the ordinary world of the ‘nobody.’

One of the film’s greatest scenes plays out before Valantin’s life begins to fall apart. It is a scene which twists the lack of regular sounds and dialogue around, poking fun at the film’s own format. In what turns out to be a nightmare, Valentin sits in front of his dressing room mirror, playing with the items on his desk. He notices they make sounds when they hit the surface, we hear them with him. Shocked, he knocks them all over to clatters and spills and attempts to speak, but no words come out his mouth; he is stuck in silence. The dog barks and he runs outside where a group of dancing-extras nosily pass him, giggling, then a feather falls behind them and when it lightly hits the ground, it does so with an earth-shattering bang. It is a scene which is both humorous and tragic because it is a premonition of the fate of Valentin’s career and an in-sight into his future. The obvious subtext being that he has no place in a world so full of noise.

Valentin’s art form is silence, and stripped from it he is bare and pointless in an environment hit with depression. What’s more is he witnesses the woman whose career he ignited slip into his shoes in a new decade; and the transformation from star to wannabe between the two leads switches.

With the likes of Cromwell, Goodman and even (for a brief moment) Malcolm McDowell to fall back on, The Artist barely falters, not even with a Jack Russell as one of its key players.

Given also that the film was made on a $15 million budget, this is surprising; not many filmmakers could make a feature set in the 20s/30s on such a low budget, and even less could do it so well. The sets here feel real, not digitally-enhanced or fake in any way; just ordinary. The Artist is also well-shot, clean-looking well composed images drive it; and the look does not imitate that of the ‘oldies’ – which is always a threat with such films – but manages to feel old-fashioned in spirit rather than specifically in look. Of course, in black and white the film is beautiful. Had this been a period drama, with no humour and shot in colour, then the film’s charm would be lost. Here is where the credit falls onto Michel Hazanavicius, whose finished vision for The Artist is at once refreshing, charming and heart-breaking.

Perhaps the greatest strength of The Artist is the freedom it bestows upon the viewer. With no dialogue, save what we read in the intertitles, the audience is in a unique position to read further into every aspect of the film. Every movement by its characters, every glance and every action seems relevant to the film as a whole. Take for example the premier of Valentin’s doomed “Tears of Love” in a nearly-empty cinema screen. Up high Miller watches with tears in her eyes as Valentin’s character sinks slowly into a sandpit. At the back of the room, Valentin watches, his arrogant smile stripped from him as his screen alter-ego is consumed by the earth. What might have otherwise been comical or ridiculous is made heart-breaking. Seeing his character’s hand slip into the sand and disappear seems to symbolise Valentin’s career and his future.

There is also a wider relevance to be considered with The Artist, set against the great depression; it feels like a film very much at home in this day and age. The Western World is once again on the brink of economic turmoil, a new-depression looms uncertainly in front of us, and perhaps this is why Hazanavicius went for such a transitional period in our history for his film. Valentin’s downfall feels relatable. When stripped of his glory he feels akin to the modern man. And here we are now, in 2012, a jobless and often-bleak time – how different are the people of our generations? Our futures too seem foggy. At one point in the film, Valentin’s wife says to him, “I’m unhappy George,” to which he replies, “So are millions of us.”The message in The Artist is that perhaps we are all venerable, and for Valentin, it is his pride which threatens to devour his life. In the end it is a film about old and new; success and failure; fame and redemption, and how pride can destroy a man.

The Artist should hold up fine in modern cinema without the use of speech because, it seems, silence is as effective. God knows we’ve seen the power that the removal of sound from a film can have – look at The Coen Brothers, some of their finest works have featured little in terms of sound, No Country For Old Men runs on near dialogue-less, cat-and-mouse suspense. Then there’s the absorbing opening sequence of Their Will be Blood – not a word. Move further forward to Steve McQueen’s hunger, and Nicholas Winding-Refn’s Drive, both use the power of silence in part to great effective.

Then, of course, there’s the other end of the stick. 2010 and 2011 saw both The Social Network and The King’s Speech, both of which managed to grip audiences by effective use of the spoken word. Moving further back and who can forget Matt Damon’s “Why shouldn’t I work for the N.S.A?” monologue in Good Will Hunting? Or the back-and-forth of early Tarantino? The opening scene of The Godfather?

Though spectacular, perhaps it is not more silent films like The Artist we need; maybe it’s more creativity in the films we see. Silent films should not become the next Hollywood phase such as 3-D; what’s so good about The Artist is that it is refreshing to watch, it’s dramatic and funny; one of those rare films that comes along every once in awhile, out of nowhere, whose effect cannot and should not be manufactured.

The Projectionists Ain't Gone Yet

Written for a college assignment, we had to go out and interview a person of interest and write up an article in the style of the "A Life In A Day" features run by the Sunday Times.

E.g: http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/archive_article.aspx?Id=2786

I interviewed Malcolm Brown, a Projectionist at the GFT:

I went to The Glasgow Film Theatre to speak to projectionist Malcolm Brown on what it is like to be one of few left in an important and nostalgic profession in the film industry.

I’m Glaswegian through and through. From the Southside. Originally I’m from Barrhead. I’ve been here years now. I was at university and worked part time behind the bar; I was doing electrical engineering. I started in here full time, working behind the bar and then I picked up the job to train up as a projectionist about eighteen years ago now. So I trained on the job and also I (attended) a lot of training courses over the years at various places in Scotland but mostly in the National film Theatre in London.

We’ve been trained from the word GO in digital. The GFT were good enough to send us off on training courses with the changeover in mind. It’s been quite surprising how quick it’s happened. Obviously when I originally came it was all 35mm, and we also did 16mm and 70mm. A smaller format which was for mellow film makers mostly because it was cheaper.  99.9% of the time if you went to the cinema you were watching 35mm and also 70mm – which we would maybe show two or three times a year. We were probably the only cinema, certainly in Glasgow, which showed it. We no longer show 16mm at all and very rarely we show 70mm, but I was trained in film.

It was quite sad to see the 35mm go. I did like film although in a way it’s easier for projectionists, for us to deal with digital stuff although it’s got its own problems. There’s security issues, there’s keys to be issued, they are very exacting about times. Although we still show quite a lot of film; we’re maybe about 80% digital.

One cineworld down the road, which has eighteen screens, has no projectionists now. It’s basically front of house managers now because it’s all programmed.

I don’t even know what my favourite film is. I’ve been asked this before but I wouldn’t know where to start. There’s so many. I like Scorcese. On the big screen in particular it looks lovely. I quite liked a trilogy from Allan J.Pakula. . He did: Klute, All The President’s Men and the Parallax View; early 70s. The Parrallax View – that’s one of my faves. All three of them are very good films. There’s hundreds. I was a film buff in my youth but now I’m not so much. I never really go to the movies because it’s a busman’s holiday really. 

How you learn is from making mistakes. I remember once putting on a film shot in Glasgow, Ken Loach’s “Carla’s song.” When that was first released, I made it up on what you call a cake stand which means you can show a whole film start to finish upstairs in cinema one, and I started that day and I went downstairs. We have CCTV monitors so if we’re sitting downstairs in cinema two we can keep an eye on cinema one; and I was sitting looking at the monitor and I thought ‘Is that screen meant to be upside down?” But of course it wasn’t. It was a Friday afternoon. Because it had been shot in Glasgow I think we had about 350 people in to see it. We had to cancel the showing. That’s the kind of things you don’t do very often, and that’s becoming less relevant now because of digital. There always was the human error possibilities. Now if something goes wrong it’s likely to be a software glitch; which is really out of your hands.

The fact that we still have four projectionists here at the GFT is a good thing. Not only are we just showing films we’re doing education events. We also deal with the art school maybe three days a week doing lectures. We would deal with setting that up and getting their PowerPoint presentations on the screen and lighting the people up.

We can be busy from nine in the morning until eleven at night. Which is good for us. We’ve kept four projectionists because we need them. Q and A’s. Director’s coming in. You name it - there’s always something going on.

’37 this building was built so, obviously,  we’ve updated it quite a lot since but there’s still quite a lot of maintenance we’ve got to keep our eye on or else. So we would look after all of that, it’s becoming more relevant. Also be dealing with fire safety and general maintenance. 

Quentin Tarantino - He’s been in here a couple of times. I met him twice actually. Once – just as Reservoir Dogs was released which was way back when I started.  I made him a coffee and he sat chatting. He was back three years ago at the festival so he was obviously much bigger. The first time he came he just arrived himself; he was touring Europe promoting Reservoir Dogs. Peter Mullan’s a regular. He was at university in Glasgow; he knows the GFT really well. He’s here often. We’ve met a lot of celebs over the years. 

There’s always something to be doing. It’s not often we sit about watching the movies, you know?

(Photo Found on Google. Not actually the GFT)

My Review Of Snowtown for The Journal

http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/8335-snowtown-not-for-the-faint-hearted

A Few Photographs of Aberdeen in January '11

Warrior (2011)

The North-East of the USA has been the home to some of the best fighting films around; this handful of states has been the home to some of cinema’s most iconic sporting characters. Warrior follows in this tradition, set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania it may just have certified this corner of America as the spiritual home to great cinematic fighters. However, if you’re not a fan of sports in either reality or in film format, do not be put off, there is an equal amount of believable drama in this film to satisfy, to the point that the sport - in this case Mixed Martial Arts – often gets surpassed by it. Some might even argue that Warrior is not essentially a sports film, nor even a sports-drama; but a film about confrontation in all its forms.

 It begins with some gentle shots of a slightly peaceful Pittsburgh in winter time before dragging us into the daily routine of Nick Nolte’s Paddy Conlon, a reformed Christian and former alcoholic. Almost instantly it becomes apparent that the environment of the characters will play a crucial part in the mood of the film; the cold and steely Pittsburgh we see comes to mirror the characters themselves. Hardened, stone-faced and bitter; they are a direct product of their environment. Their surroundings are an important element in developing the themes of the story before the film’s epic action-packed finale. Nolte returns home to find his youngest son Tommy (played spectacularly by Tom Hardy) sat on his doorstep. It is their first encounter since Paddy’s drunkenness drove Tommy and their mother from their home and out West years before. He offers his father a bottle of Jameson whisky, Paddy – going on 1000 days sober – refuses and invites his son inside. What follows is a scene which summarises the tough and secretive character of Tommy himself. In the living room he rips his Father’s life to shreds, pin-pointing all the ironies of his father’s changed lifestyle in an almost-accidental bid to start a fight. “I think I liked you better when you were a drunk” – he tells his father, who take all the insults throughout the film, feeling he deserves them for inflicting on his two sons a childhood – which as it is slowly revealed to us in reflection - was both bleak and vicious.

 What is possibly most endearing about Warrior is how it prioritises the dramatic scenes against the sporting ones. It’s a good fifteen minutes before we see anything in the way of an actual, physical fight. Director, David O’Conner has first laid down the importance of his characters, he exposes them to us flatly in the first act of the film; a clear sign to the audience that Warrior is not the Jason Statham-type of action film some might have sensed from those posters stretched boldly across the sides of buses, with a ripped and looming Tom Hardy behind the WWE-esque font of the film’s title. This is a drama with sport infused and blended into it. That being said, Tommy’s first stint in the ring – against a UFC middle-weight contender - will be guaranteed to leave goose bumps running across your skin. He knocks his opponent out in a matter of minutes, and it is here that we see the other side of the film. A film about animosity – shown gloriously through the beast-like nature of the character of Tommy.

 Warrior goes between Tommy’s story as he, with Paddy training him, builds his way through the ranks of Mixed Martial Arts. Simultaneously we follow his older brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton) in Philadelphia as his secure life as a physics teacher crumbles. Threatened with bankruptcy and with a wife, two children and a home to maintain – he turns to his old sport of MMA out of desperation. Brendan’s tale brings further depth to the story, we delve into his home life with his family, we see him suffer and struggle to convince his old friend Frank Grillo (played by Frank Campana) to coach him, and soon we grow fond of him.

 It is a strange thing in a film to have an audience torn between two characters the way Warrior does and not have us choose which character we wish to see succeed; but instead  has us rooting for both of them as they train for the same title, unknown to each other. As Tommy rages on in his animal-like fury, we watch him and grow to love his rough charm; the bitter disputes with his father adding further tension to the film. Brendan works his way up in a cleaner, more organised environment. We are given two perspectives of the same world. This a contrast that mirrors in the two brothers themselves: Tommy, who fights brutally for reasons unknown to us until the film’s final act and Brendan, who fights for his life, his family and for a future. It is in this contrast that the film maker’s deserve recognition. Not many films can balance such a hefty plot with so much in the way of drama and action as well as Warrior does. Not only does it balance the stories of the brothers’ excellently, it handles the sporting scenes and the drama scenes equally well. As well as the not-too bittersweet family scenes with Brendan, the training scenes, the random side plots such as the headmaster of Brendan’s school and his pupils following his progress in the tournament; and the soldier’s in Afghanistan who uncover Tommy’s identity through the internet. A lot is going on, but nothing is forgotten and there are no loose ends.

 The heart of Warrior is in the bitter relationship between Paddy and his two sons and the most emotive and engaging scenes in the film are not the epic fights which conclude it but the verbal confrontations between the three of them. Paddy – the War vet and former alcoholic who seeks forgiveness but never receives it, Brendan – as angry as Tommy at the childhood his father inflicted on them but guilty of abandoning his younger brother. Then of course there’s Tommy, who lashes out at his brother, his father, his opponents and the world for allowing his life to unfold the way it has. His life has been plagued by suffering since his childhood and he seeks both revenge and forgiveness in his anger. Tom Hardy does an outstanding job of expressing this rage; the turmoil of Tommy’s life and this creates a notable contrast to Brendan’s sombre and honourable demeanour.

 Of the many scenes in the film, three stick in my mind more than any other, and each one features a face-off between two of three main characters. In the first half there a scene set in a Pittsburgh cafe where Tommy reluctantly – and rudely – asks his father to coach him. It’s a great scene, with the two men putting each other in their places. “You get something through your skull, too. You called me. So don't go threatening to walk every five minutes” – says Paddy, and in reply Tommy spits “You wanna tell your war stories, you can take 'em down to the VFW. You can take 'em to a meeting, or church, or wherever.” There’s another excellent scene which takes places during the Sparta tournament later on in the film, where the two brothers come face-to-face for the first time since they were teens. On one of Atlantic City’s empty beaches they show-down, Tommy hitting out at his big bro for not being with him as their mother died. It is at times brutal to watch Tommy as he destroys any hope of having a normal relationship with his brother, distancing himself further and further from normality. It helps builds the whole aura of animosity around Tommy himself, the swelling rage, all adding to the intensity of the following fight scenes.

The best scene, however, is when Tommy finally succeeds in breaking his father’s spirit, driving Paddy back to the bottle. He returns to their Atlantic City hotel suite to the father he left behind as a teen - the dangerous, unstable, angry drunk - and it’s in this scene that we see the humane side to the character of Tommy. He returns to familiarity, a father full of hate – like he himself is - and in this scene he shows the only signs of respect for his father in the film as he cares for him and sees him to bed. Nick Nolte reaches his peak as the character of Paddy in this scene, believable and terrifying as the tortured war veteran.

 Warrior is charged by its three central performances from Hardy, Nolte and Edgerton, but is not solely dependant on them for its impact. It is well-filmed; the cinematography is honest and often absorbing, driven mostly by natural light, selling Warrior as a real, believable film. The soundtrack is fittingly minimal; music is reserved for moments of emotion or triumph. Worth noting is the split-screen montage midway into the film, documenting the training of both brothers – probably the best sports montage in recent memory. As already discussed the environment of the characters plays a massive role in our overall perception of these characters , and it’s in the cameras exploration of the setting in the first half that sets the mood of the film. These men mirror their own surroundings and were born on the streets of Pittsburgh. The city of Pittsburgh itself was an excellent choice for the setting of the film, a fairly unknown place, forgotten arguably – torn between the East-Coast and the mid-west; between busyness and emptiness. All this mounts up, adding to the grittiness and the realism we feel watching Warrior.

 There is however smalls anchors weighing Warrior down, for starters the Commentary which is used heavily for the final tournament in the film feels slightly out-of-place to begin with and takes a while to adjust to. Soon enough  the commentary blends into the mood of the final act and eventually helps with the build-up of the fights; but it is a big leap to go from such heavy drama to snappy-line commentary. Another problem is the character of Tess Conlon, Brendan’s wife – played well by Jennifer Morrison - who plays an important role for the films first half but fades away towards the end. She ends up a side-character with little to do as the film progresses, until eventually she is torn between side character and extra, lost and out-of-place in a film essentially about a Father and his two sons; not a father, his two sons and one of the son’s wives. The casting of UFC fighters themselves and wrestler Kurt Angle might confuse a few people, but they play their parts well and are not given enough screen time to destroy the film.

At the end of the day though, this film belongs to O’Conner and Tom Hardy. Hardy is nothing short of glorious as the enraged Tommy, and it would be good to see a few awards go his way for his turn. God-knows he’s earned it.

There will be inevitable comparison here to the other stand-out fighting film of the year – no, not Real Steel – The Fighter, but to me these are two very different films. Yes, they are both set in nearby states. Yes – they both contain a substantial amount of drama; but they are structured in different ways. Plus Warrior doesn’t have a character that resembles the likes of Christian Bale’s unforgettable Dickie Eklund. On top of this, Warrior is made-up. The Fighter was real. Though both films are on equal terms critically, they are great for differing reasons. All comparisons are - as they always are with great fighting films – put side-by-side next to Raging Bull. A film whose representation of the world of competitive fighting has never been matched, Warrior comes close to engaging the viewer in Raging Bull’s themes of brutality and rage, but ultimately has too much of a Rocky-style climax element to it, which works better for it I believe. O’Conner does not delve into as dark a place as Scorcese did, but it works brilliantly for Warrior, whose tone is perfectly real.

Warrior is a film about human nature, animosity, rage, forgiveness and redemption - and it handles all of its themes remarkably. We see the world of Mixed Martial Arts, not as a blunt world of blood and bones where brainless thugs bash skulls; but as a world where hard men with hard lives fight because fighting is all they know. The cage itself becomes a metaphor for the animal kingdom that is the world, and these characters exploit it to us, they show us that violence will always be a part of our culture. When we see the characters beating each other in the ring, we see men exposed as the animals we often forget we are. In every way Warrior is a film about confrontation. Confronting the past, the present and our way of life. In Warrior, physical confrontation is a means of communication far more effective than speech.

Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011)

  Probably the most memorable quote in Page One is from the mouth of Julian Assange, the controversial founder of Wiki-leaks, when he tells a New York Times Journalist in a phone conversation during the film that, “Journalism is just a tool.” It is fitting not just to his trail of thought but to the nature of the documentary ,  which explores the King of all Newspapers, and the empire which has been built around its example in the States. This documentary also attempts to address important and relevant issues in the modern world, such as the apparent death of the newspaper format in a world where news can be blogged and tweeted to the masses before most editors can say the word “pitch.”

  Page One begins with some nicely composed shots of the production of an edition of the New York Times, we see giant rolls of paper loaded onto huge machines and forklifts roaming with flashing lights: its newspaper production on an epic scale. Almost immediately the film delves into one of the many issues it aims to confront: why is the newspaper dying? We see old news reports charting the decline of some of America’s top papers, some of which were forced to shut down due to poor sales – all but the New York times, whose readership only increased. The film then throws us straight into the New York Times’ office environment, a busy and stressful place where-in work people who have dreamt of working in its walls for most of their lives. Such is the nature of this film, all of the above takes place in a short space of time, almost like news itself, the plot points come and go, taking us in different directions but never fully absorbing us in one singular story for longer than a few minutes.

  Unexpectedly the documentary is given some much appreciated depth in the form of David Carr, a media columnist at the New York Times with a fantastically natural charisma and filmable charm; the scenes in which he features are far more absorbing than anything else in the film. Carr’s honesty on the screen when speaking of the youth he spent as an addict merged with his own personal nerve and wit in the workplace makes the film worthwhile. God-knows there may have been a better documentary to be made in merely filming the man himself as he goes about his daily life.

  That’s not to say that this documentary fails, it is informative and will be interesting even to those who couldn’t care less about the newspaper industry; its problem is that it twists and turns a lot in terms of focus. Page One’s camera men stumble across so many fascinating stories in passing that it actually becomes a slight annoyance when they delve slightly into certain ones before unceremoniously pulling us out again. This does however give off the energy of the newsroom to great effect, and perhaps this was the intention of its director Andrew Rossi, because it certainly does this well.

  Page One’s most obvious aim is to humanise the New York Times. It addresses the fantasy of the Times – the 50’s-esque, perfectly run newsroom, that’s more “Daily Bugle” than anything else – and infuses the reality: the office spaces, the redundancies, the tough stories, the law suits and above all else the worrying thought that some stories are bigger even than the paper itself and may never see the light of day. It makes for an enjoyable watch.

  Still the film, though superbly edited and well-researched, could have done with a few improvements. It’s a shame that we never see much outside of the New York Times office, save in small doses. New York City could have been a great playground for the camera crew; even a few shots of the city itself could have boosted the energy of the documentary and the mood of its character’s environment. The best scene in the film in fact takes place in an office at Vice Magazine and features Carr, who argues three heads of the magazine to the ground when one of them insinuates that the New York Times is too mainstream.

  Carr is the hero of this picture, and it really does feel like a waste to not have had more of the man in the film. If he had more screen time then this documentary might have held a candle next to the other great docs of recent years: Catfish for one, with its impulsiveness which was gripping, or Senna, which was emotionally involving in a way which few films in recent memory have been. Sadly it doesn’t, and in the end the film itself feels nothing much more than old news.